Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Unwelcomed Teacher: Adversity

This teacher shows up at the most inopportune times and demands your attention. When he arrives will you see it as an opportunity or an obstacle? I've already revealed the teacher in my title: adversity. No one that I know in publishing is immune to it yet it continues to teach valuable lessons.

This week, Harvey Mackay writes about adversity and the way perseverance is a key to success. I loved this line in his column, "We must push through the adversity we face. If we don't, we will be poorly prepared for winning. People are successful because they face adversity head-on to gain strength and skill. They don't take the path of least resistance. Adversity is a powerful teacher." Then a bit later he wrote, "When you get discouraged, when you seem unable to make it, there is one thing you cannot do without. It is the priceless ingredient of success called relentless effort. You must never give up. Success cannot be achieved without experiencing some adversity." I hope you will read his entire column because it is filled with pointed quotable insight.

As one of my projects for the week, I've been preparing to launch a new product. I mentioned using Sound Forge to brand a couple of my workshops for the bonus items. I could not get these files into my shopping cart or figure out how to deliver them. I persevered and tried many different ways--without success. Finally at 2 a.m., I gave up and the next day I turned to a friend who is much more knowledgeable about these audio files and asked for his insight. It turned out I was using the default setting on Sound Forge which saved the audio file in the highest possible quality. There is a direct relationship between the size of the file and the quality of the audio. As the quality is higher, the file size increased. I lessened the quality of the audio and the file became more manageable or something that I could deliver to the customer. I've played the files on my computer and can't tell any difference between the high quality and the lesser quality. While I don't have all of the details completed, I know I can deliver the product to the customer and once again my perseverance has paid off.

Many people are amazed at the volume of my body of writing work. I didn't do it to amaze anyone. I'm convinced there are better writers and communicators in the marketplace who have published fewer books and written for fewer publications. I am doggedly persistent to work through the challenges of the day and discover the solutions.

This was a timely topic for me. With two adversaries just this past week nipping at my heels, I was just thinking, "Why continue to bother?" Then, comes your pep talk and how to face it down. Thanks, Terry.

I am one of your subscribers and love your work! Today's article on "Adversity" took me by surprise b/c I thought to myself, "what a coincidence." I specialize in teaching people how to overcome adversity!

You're right that adversity is a great teacher and helps build character. Being born profoundly deaf and then working to achieve my life's dreams and aspirations put me in touch with much adversity. Adersity does not discriminate - no one is immune from it.

I was conducting an experiment over at my blog, asking people to write ways they overcome adversity and than tagging other bloggers to do the same. Would you be interested? If so, let me know and I'll send you a link to that article.